Videos and QR Codes in the Library

     In today's blog I'll be talking about some video streaming sites, and one way to access them. 

First up is Youtube.  I've been instructed to look at 4 specific channels, and select videos from each that I think are particularly helpful, and attractive to students. 

Calypso Gilstrap: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheNHSLibrary/videos
There are only 6 videos on this channel, so all of them are easy to find from the link above.  There are a couple of helpful videos here, in particular I like "How to use EBSCOHost" because it helps students learn to find good articles for their research.  My favorite video is "Tiger visits the Norman High Library".  I think the kids would get a kick out of seeing their mascot partaking of the library's services.

Theunquietlibrary: https://www.youtube.com/user/theunquietlibrary/videos 
This channel has quite a few videos, much of which are either showcasing student work or giving online tutorials for library resources.  One of the more useful videos is "Finding and Using Wikimedia Commons Images".  There a few videos on finding commons images that students can use for their presentations.  A video I think the students would appreciate is "Corbett Mythology Project".  Not only does it showcase the work of their fellow students, but it is pretty humorous as well.

pikesvillehslibrary: https://www.youtube.com/user/pikesvillehslibrary/videos 
Unlike the previous two libraries, this one's channel does not have any screencast how-to videos.  There are videos on various announcements, school events, class descriptions, and kids having fun.  One that kids would like and is useful is "Pikesvillehighschool FASFA".  It's a group of kids acting out a scenario in which after the holidays they have to fill out their FASFA.  The students would probably especially like "Senior Party in the Library", which features a bunch of students dancing on desks.  As a teacher, the videos I like best are the series in which the senior teacher introduce their classes, presumably to inform students what to register for.

bbmsmedia: https://www.youtube.com/user/bbmsmedia/videos 
By far, my favorite of the four channels.  This channel features a multitude of creative and informative videos.  You can really see how involved in the library the students are, because many of the videos star them.  There are useful learning videos such as, "How to Create a NoodleTools Project",  but the majority are videos that center on the school community, particularly in the library.  My favorites, and the student favorites I'm sure, are the overdue books series of videos that often star students in singing parodies of pop songs, like this parody of  issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7-vhzf0PQ  .  Other overdue book videos are movie clips that have been cut and re-dubbed with students doing the new lines, like this star wars parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivht6CPe1Ekhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivht6CPe1Ek. 

My only complaint about any of these channels is that most of them are pretty old, and haven't been updated in years.  Another good library-centric Youtube channel is Mr. Scooter, https://www.youtube.com/user/scooterstories/videos, he is pretty famous in the library world for his Dewey rap, but he actually has a lot more videos than that and he posts periodically.

 As a library student/ future librarian I'm pretty inspired by these channels.  I can certainly see myself doing something like this in the future.  I may actually start sooner rather than later, and develop a channel as a teacher/ club sponsor.  I'd like to create videos about the events, tutorials, and student work.  I'd really like to involve the kids as much as possible, because I see this as a good way to connect to them.


Animoto
For this part of the assignment, we were to create a book trailer using Animoto. It's pretty a neat program, and I like how there are options in how you want to use the video.  You can leave it on animoto, dowload it, or even export it to other sites like youtube.
Using Animoto I created a book trailer for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley.  

Here is the synopsis from goodreads.com:
It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.

For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

To make the video, I used an Animoto template and plugged in pictures from the Creative Commons website, and added my own text.  The music in the video is part of the template provided by Animoto.
Here is the link to my video. https://animoto.com/play/V8Xlos0SH3Ya8d1FSbE0Jw  .Because I'm using the trial version, it has a Animoto watermark on it.

QR codes
QR codes are pictures that can be scanned like barcodes, that usually involve a link to a website.  You need a QR scanner that can be downloaded onto your mobile device.  The library at my school has used them to link to booktrailers, and library events.  This past year they did a "March Madness" book competition in which students would vote on their favorite books, and they did so using QR codes.  The yearbook at my school used QR codes to link to videos of the students.  I will probably use QR codes in my future library in  the same way, connecting the library to the students in a way they'll get involved.

I've created a QR code, using https://www.qrstuff.com/ , for my book trailer here.

Here is a QR code to link you to a playlist I created of all the above discussed videos.